Goodbye Shyam Babu

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I knew Shyam Benegal as the Benegals and the da Cunhas were very close. My maternal uncle Kersy Katrak, and paternal uncle Gerson da Cunha were two of Shyam's closest friends. In the early 60s, my dad and Shyam worked together in an ad agency called ASP, the latter's passion for cinema was apparent even then. Ad films soon made way to art films - Ankur, Manthan, Bhumika, Nishant, all followed each other in quick succession. Shyam Benegal heralded the Parallel Cinema movement, also called Art Cinema or the New Wave in the early 70s.

I've always admired the Parallel Cinema movement. Men and women, like Benegal, Ketan Mehta, and Saeed Mirza, battled a formulaic, "naach gaana, dishoom dishoom" system, believing that movies were more than about entertainment, cinema, they felt was largely about social change. The truth is that if your hero and heroine weren't running around trees, you ran from pillar to post looking to finance your film - and the outlets, our single screens (way before multiplexes came into existence) were only available for stars of the silver screen. Still, Shyam Benegal, given these limitations was prolific, it is true that he had funds for his early work, via Blaze Advertising, but proper releases were a paucity, many of his works found true recognition in film festivals like Berlin and Cannes.

As I attempt to market my film through the Rubix Cube that is modern Indian cinema, it is remarkable how Shyam babu managed to get his films made, and more importantly, he was prolific for a maker whose aim was social change not mere escapist cinema. In a pre-COVID era of non-OTT, non-content driven cinema-streaming platforms, he had to make do with money and marketing from wherever it came, with no stars, no songs, no guaranteed box office, often unhappy endings. He had to sell his ideas based on a labour of love, to still ride forth Don Quixote like into the windmills that was Bollywood, was miraculous. And yet, he once famously said, "Shortages make you think".

In some ways, Shyam reminded me of Clint Eastwood, not in the quality or quantity of films, or even content, but in that both men were relentless, filmmaking was their DNA, one movie followed another, and advancing age did not deter them. In fact, it may have made them more intense and industrious. Both made/were making films into their 90s. Shyam's was perhaps the harder journey - as an alternate filmmaker, making movies that were more experimental he had no studio backers. And yet he had many peaks in his career, because he was so consistent, in between movies, he pursued telling his stories on television - Yatra, about the Indian Railways and Bharat Ek Khoj, based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book Discovery of India, held him in good stead, when funds dried up for other Parallel Cinema directors.

The 1990s saw Benegal make his trilogy on Indian Muslim women in Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zudeidaa - it would not be an overstatement, that women, their exploitation, and their elevation was an huge muse for Benegal.

(On a side note, I was always amused and amazed by the fact that a man from South Bombay could so deftly understand the hardship of women from rural India - the point is he did.) Shyam babu, we wave goodbye to you, pioneer of the New Wave movement. And a man who redefined humility and humanity.

I wish you could have seen my first film offering, Pune Highway - you were one of the first who saw the stage version and recommended it should be adapted to the screen. Alas. Rest well sir, for you there will be many retakes.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com